Hate Crimes

February, 2016

The Justice Department has announced that Martin Alan Schnitzler, 43, pleaded guilty to “obstructing persons in the free exercise of religious beliefs” in the Middle District of Florida for a Nov. 13, 2015 hate crime against Muslims. He is responsible for calling two mosques located in Pinellas County, Florida to make …

Indiana Senate Bill 220 passed the senate 34-16 and will now advance to the state House. This bill would offer the possibility of judges to impose harsher sentences to convicted criminals whose actions targeted victims based on race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, disability, national origin, ancestry or sexual orientation. Indiana …

At her hate crime sentencing today, the 25-year-old daughter of a suburban police chief, Kathryn Knott received 5-10 months jail time with two years probation in the September 2014 attack by Knott and two friends that left victims, homosexual couple Zachary Hesse and Andrew Haught for dead in Philadelphia’s City Center. …

January, 2016

Strips of black tape were found across the faces of black faculty members in photos outside of Wasserstein lecture hall in November 2015. Investigators moved in on the case, which was highly publicized on Twitter, as a probable hate crime. The Boston Globe reports that officials have found no leads in …

Police in Seattle are searching for a white man who dropped off a KKK robe at a clothing store owned by a black woman. Via Raw Story: Leona Coakley-Spring owns Rags to Riches Consignment, which she opened only a few months ago, in an affluent suburb of Seattle. She was shocked …

Neither the judge nor John David Weissinger, the San Diego-area man who pleaded guilty for making violent threats against the local Council on American-Islamic Relations office, were buying the argument defense attorney Michael Maloney made at Weissinger’s sentencing on Tuesday. Malowney claimed that the judge should go easy on his …

As GOP candidates continue to play on the American electorate’s fear of ISIS, innocent Syrians in villages like Madaya continue to remain trapped. Via Washington Post: By the time the convoy carrying food arrived, Sereen didn’t know how much more she and others in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya …

Yes, this is America. 2016. Via Gothamist A village in central New York voted on Monday night to maintain its controversial seal, which depicts a white man with his hands placed on the shoulders of a Native American man, apparently choking him. Whitesboro, New York residents voted in favor of …

Muslim women are speaking out that they feel particularly targeted by a section of the American population which has failed to distinguish Muslim-Americans from terrorists. Women wearing hijab may feel as if they might as well be wearing targets on their bodies. Sirin Kale reports on the recent incidents of …

Via Raw Story: “In Iowa this weekend, Talking Points Memo reports, registered voters began receiving robocalls in which Jared Taylor, spokesman for the white supremacist group that Dylann Roof cites as inspiration in his racist manifesto, implores citizens of the state to vote for Donald Trump. “I urge you to …

Donald Trump has, yet again, made public statements that all Americans should find extremely alarming. This time, it’s in the form of expressing praise for the viciousness of North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong-Un. Full Story – Addicting Info

“Appearing on CNN’s State of the Nation, a former Obama White House adviser took GOP front-runner Donald Trump to task for a campaign so firmly rooted in bigotry that it has emboldened racists to make unsolicited robocalls in support of his candidacy.” –Raw Story Full Story – Raw Story …

Because of Germany’s historical involvement in genocide, hate speech in Germany has been considered a serious crime since WWII. While the far-right has often clashed with law enforcement by speaking out against migrants, since the wave of violence in Cologne on New Years Eve where over 100 sexual assaults and robberies by …

In mid-December the FBI arrested former police chief James Burke of Suffolk County, NY shortly after his resignation. He is being held without bond while his abuses of power are investigated; they range from civil rights violations for torturing a prisoner to conspiracy charges. Before Burke is tried, retired sergeant Scott …